Excruciating

It’s Friday, and the weekend looms ahead of me, filled with that most excruciating of experiences:  the getting of feedback.  I’ve submitted a couple of my more recent short stories to a writers’ group, and I will be hearing their unabridged opinions at our next meeting.

Feedback isn’t always pretty.  Writers’ groups contain people with a variety of experiences, opinions, and differing levels of writing and critiquing skills.  While some people like to try to understand what the writer was trying to do, and attempt to pitch their feedback accordingly, others come from the hold-nothing-back camp.  Of course, we’re all there to learn and to understand our own writing better so that we can improve it, so the forthright opinion of our peers is valuable.  But it needs to be constructive, not destructive.  It is possible to be honest without gouging out the tender roots of a beginner writer’s confidence.  

What do I mean by this?  Studies have shown that it's usually the more experienced learners who want to hear negative (but specific) feedback.  People who are just starting out welcome more positive comments, because they need the encouragement.  In a group with a variety of experience and, more importantly, confidence levels, it can be quite tricky to know which end of the continuum to pitch your comments to, so inevitably there will be some misfires.  It pays to put on your psychological flak-jacket before seeking feedback from a group, in case you’re on the receiving end of an enthusiastically well-intentioned mortar attack.

So, armed with my bullet-proof silk & mohair fingerless gloves, I have submitted two short stories for the consideration of the group. I wrote the first of them several months ago. I loved the process of writing it, and felt very pleased with the result.  Since then, the satisfied glow of completion has ebbed a little, leaving me wondering how successful it really is.  Re-reading it, I’m not sure it is as smooth as I’d first thought.  It’s short, very short, maybe painfully so.  But I think it might still contain enough cleverness and charm (and “punch”) to satisfy the reader.  

The second story is brand new, and much rawer as a result.  It started, as many of my stories do, with a single burning scene in mind, and the rest of the narrative has grown around it in misshapen concentric rings.  I’m still much too close to that interior place of creation to have any ability to judge either the story or the quality of its delivery.  In my inner eye, the salt marsh locale is beautiful, desolate, and gloomy, but I’ve described it sparingly, and maybe some readers will want more physical detail.  I do know it’s still quite rough in places, the pacing is a little clumpy, and I really need to learn a whole lot of new words that mean “grey”. 

On the other hand, some aspects of this story are quite nuanced, requiring the reader to make a leap.  I know from experience that not all readers are able or willing to do that.  Some people expect to have every last, excruciating plot point fed to them, with a disposable plastic spoon, no less.  And after a beta-reading by a family member who expressed denouement disappointment, I suspect there will be quite mixed feedback on this one.  And that is a good thing, if it helps me to understand how it is received variously in the mind of the readers.